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Every child is born an artist, the problem is how to remain one. Pablo Picasso

The Magical Child in Exile is a dramatised story written for people who have yet to reclaim their creative Magical Child in order to experience the mental, emotional and spiritual well being of the naturally free flowing creative state.

While the story makes sweeping statements about the competitive education system for the purpose of dramatising the impact of how we can lose connection to our innately creative state, I would like to acknowledge the wise, creative, fun loving teachers who recognise that creativity should not be left behind in the eclectic gallery of kindergarten and continue to value it as an important component of the learning process. These teachers are the gate keepers for the Artists Soul.

Where does the unlimited imagination, the energy creativity and passion of childhood go? We start out at the kindergarten level oblivious to skin colour, cultural differences and economic status, yet have created a society that has so many divisions and ‘isms’.

As a maturing society we are face racism, sexism, agism and the complex needs of people who are isolated, mentally unwell and disconnected from their fellow human beings. In the journey from kindergarten to adolescence and adulthood many people have learnt to believe in the differences that set us apart rather than celebrate and engage with the broad range of differences from within the sameness of our shared humanity.

Why does gossip and drama preoccupy so many people these day and why do tabloids and celebrity gossip have such a strong hold that feeds social media and popular culture?

I think it began in a land far and near in times as long ago as yesterday and today…

The Magical Child in Exile

Once upon a time there was a Magical Child who loved to draw and dance and sing and paint and laugh and play. Some days the Magical Child just twirled and swirled in circles for the sheer pleasure of it all.

The Magical Child even had an invisible friend and all the grown ups thought that was very cute, just as cute as when the Magical Child played ‘make believe’ and “I can do and be any thing”.When the Magical Child was sad, tears flowed. When the Magical Child was happy, laughter cascaded.

When the Magical Child was angry there were big yells and sometimes a full-body splat onto the ground as the tsunami of outrage and disappointment is just too much for a little person to contain. However as soon as the moment was processed the discordant energy left their body leaving the cells free to breathe and grow and remain in their healthy natural state.

But by and bye-bye something happened one day!

The Magical Child was in the midst of telling one of the grown up’s about a funny little make believe story when the grown up said, stop being silly! You can’t keep pretending like that! You are a big girl now!

They had said the same thing to her brother not so long ago. You are a big boy now. Stop crying. You’re not a baby! STOP IT.”

The Magical Child was shocked and her shock was accompanied by an unpleasant feeling inside of her tummy that took a long time to go away. It was a shaming, conforming moment. A matter of fact moment that began to alter the course of the Magical Childs life forever.

A shaming moment that would seep into the recesses of the subconscious mind and like a noxious weed, eventually choke the fertile magic-making soil as surely as if a nuclear land scape had been dropped in the new’clear landscape of the Childs mind.

And so it began. The artist, the story teller, the dancer , the scribe, the prophet , the mystic all living and breathing through the imagination – the I’magi’nation- of the Magical Child was told to stop! Be quiet! Don’t dance on there you’ll fall! Sit down. Don’t be silly. Stop fidgeting. Stop asking so many questions! STOP!

On and on the commands continued. All the way through school where the Magical Child was now only permitted to create only between 10 am and 11 am (art lesson), to tell stories between 2 and 3 on Tuesdays. (English lesson). Creating whilst remaining as motionless as humanly impossible. Stop fidgeting! Stop day dreaming! Pay attention! A’tension indeed!

Facing the front board, often bored inside of a square box they called a room, a box where whirling, twirling, playfulness no longer came through the door, banned from ever mentioning invisible friends lest you invite the horrors of medication and mislabeling before you have even learnt how to tie your shoes up properly, the Magical Children sought to become what was expected of them and learn about things beyond their Magical, creative realm.

The Magical Child quickly learnt not to show sadness, anger or confusion and to repress inappropriate eruptions of joy, fear or insecurity in the class room.

Forgetting about the art, the magic, the songs, the dances and the stories and instead replaced those Magical currents with learning the things that the teacher insisted was important to their current learning, competing with the other lost Magical Children in the sports yard, in the academic arena and eventually in the work place. If they were able to still function that is.
Magical Children are resilient and they are able to forget if it means freedom from the shaming, the naming, the labeling and the ire of the grown ups but some succumbed to their true self in spite of the challenges and sometimes became known as disruptive, troubled learner, withdrawn , different and uncooperative and other such names that reveal an inability to conform to the lost-Magic around them.So was born the latest generation of leaders, lost Magical Children, who will perpetuate the lost-magic and creativity of the system. A system saturated with lost Magical Children, living unreal lives, not even realising – real’eyesing – that who they have become is not who they were meant to be.

Not. who. they. were. meant. to. be.

Many of the Magical Children, now groan-ups themselves are still h-o-l-d-i-n-g—i-t—-i-n. It is not surprising many of the once-magical-minds of the grown up’s became choked with the weeds of mental illness, alcoholism, drug dependency, neurosis, psychosis, anger, depression, boredom and frustration, competition and back biting and preoccupation with celebrity lives and drama!

Magical Children are full of pure, free flowing creative energy and energy can not be destroyed, it simply transforms, turning toxic, creating tragic from the magic.

Millions of grown up’s are lost Magical Children in varying degrees of exile though a few do escape and return to their natural state I hear. Perhaps this is why a nation can be preoccupied reality television and obsessed with the lives of the stars! The gods and goddesses of magic and creativity who not only stayed connected to make believe and pretend but are richly rewarded for doing so. They delight audiences who sit still in their chairs, immersed in intrigue and adoration, seeing the world of possibility in the magic-mirror of television.

No longer creating and producing their own stories and art and dance, the need for fantasy and magic nevertheless remains ever strong. Indeed when Magical Children in exile see others leading a “magical life” something within their own self may yearn to return to that place of Magic, creativity and infinite potential for love and connection.

How many people are sighing their day away, feeling that something is missing not realising that ‘Something’ is their free flowing creative Self. It even has been names the mid life crisis and the seven year itch and finding meaning and purpose in life. Like the kind of meaning and purpose we knew as creative children I guess

Sadly though the lost story teller may now be churning out reams of tragic rather than experiencing that once familiar creative magic. Workplace gossip, chaos and unhappy relationships, forever telling wounded story teller tales to friends and family, occasionally plummeting into the deepest chasms of depression and despair, overwhelmed by the tragedy of an uninspired life.

Depression is on the rise in the western world and there must be a reason why.

I know a lost artist who now obsessively cleans a clean house and a former magical child inventor who weeds a weed less garden seeking to create something of note in their world, processing those ever-flowing creative energies towards their small boxed in life.

If it is true that in order to experience heaven one must become like a little childthen it might well be that the Magical Children who are no-longer-in-exile, those who have recovered from the amnesia and remembered who I Am, will be the ones to remind us how to begin the wonderful journey back to our authentic, creative self and to reclaim what was always within.

After all the word reclaim is simply the word miracle in anagram disguise!

*Updated
This poem is dedicated to the many women, especially those who I meet in domestic violence shelters, who really do believe:

If I just keep on loving him, he will change & we will have the relationship that I know is possible…

We hear the words “I thought he would change” so often inside of the walls of domestic violence shelters that I created the following dramatisation for our Talking circle so that the group of women who have sometimes had 2 or 3 relationships with violent men, could begin to unravel what keeps them there and how to recognise the pattern.

The following piece is not relevant for all women who leave domestic violence, but for those women who sit in support groups and say “I believed him when he said he would change” and “He is a really nice guy, he just had a rotten childhood”, this piece is for you.

And for Janet who was killed in domestic violence by a man who then killed himself, leaving four beautiful children behind.

Ode to the Rescuer:

There was something very appealing about his pain, it matched her pattern perfectly

and her pattern goes like this:

Give me a damaged man with potential and I will embrace him as my life mission

My personal quest!

I will claim myself to be his Rescuer and through my eyes he will see how sorely he has been denied Love

And with the love of this Good Woman, he will heal!

He willheal

He willheal

He willheal

With the peace of mind that I alone have brought to him, delivered to him on a sincere heart that pulses with conviction, his heart shall finally, after many troubled years finally beat with contentment in symbiotic rhythm with my own

Ahh..this future memory brings tears to my eyes and reminds me to be patient and the reward will come.

Of this truth I have created, I am sure.

He will change

He will change

He will change

I shall interpret his moodiness as poetic brooding,

his sarcasm as merely the shadow of his enormous artistic sensitivities and

his broken promises as the unfortunate repercussions of a busy, preoccupied man.

I shall deny myself my heart’s desires,

less they place too much of a burden on his already busy mind.

I shall desperately seduce him into security with words thinly veiled

with the false reassurance that I want nothing of him

After all he is the broken one

Not me!

I will prove to him that I am the one single woman

on this Earth who can heal his troubled Soul.

Because I believe in him like no other has in the past

or could possibly at any time in the future

As the rescue program gets under way I will slowly begin to allow

the duality of the situation to come to the fore

Actually I won’t have a choice!

Having ensnared him with my rescuers net

or having fallen into his

I shall wrestle with the duality of being drawn to his charismatic withdrawals

whilst also experiencing an awakening awareness

that he is indeed mirroring my own need to heal and rescue the wounded heart.

There is something painfully seductive about that wounded heart after all it’s in all of the fairytales and rom-com’s isn’t it?

Love that Beast fair Beauty for he will come good in the end!

In order to ignore the needs of my own hopeful

desperate

optimistic

aching

wounded heart

I will plunge into my rescuing role with paradox and passion

for I am drawn to the angst of tortured feelings

which I have misconstrued as Romance and Love

as haplessly as he is drawn to his broody silences

and the acidic observations he casts out to bait me every now and then.

And quite regularly at times.

And yes. He has hit me in the past but the degree to which he is so truly deeply sorry overwhlems me with compassion for him.

Every time.

Every single time.

Except the last three times when I only felt fear and loathing,

But I got over that!

Didn’t I?

Didn’t I?

or Did !?

Words that forge our bond like who else would put up with you or me and

we were meant for one another, we are as bad as each other

will be the hypnotic sound track of the saga of our co-dependence

He will be my co-star as my life unfolds according to the stories I believe

Stories that I have created, many that have piggy backed onto the romantic tales of how the good girl transforms the bad boy with exquisite mastery and tears.

Fictional stories that I will defend as

Love!

Alas it is a tired old script with no surprises in the Story whatsoever!

but it will take me a long time to understand that

to reinterpret and rewrite the lead roles

because most of this is new to me!

And I am a stranger to myself.

Indeed aren’t we all until we remember who we really are?

Therefore I will need quite some time to realise any of this

as this predictable Olde Story unfolds on a roller coaster of

drama and desire

yearning and conflict

Those old scenarios and inevitable cycles replaying themselves in the guise of Love.

Love?

No this is just unlearnt lessons in re-enactment!

I will come to realise this one day

though I do not know that yet of course!

Although my heart does skip a beat when he looks at me in that certain seductive kind of way

Surely that must be Love?

Though you may well think I am making a banquet from a few crumbs of moments of hard earned intimacy

You are wrong of course!

Wrong

Wrong

Wrong

I know this banquet will be rich in the fruits of my desires so long as I am patient.

I willbe Patient

I willbe Patient

I willbe Patient

My mantras give my life meaning and hope

They really do

Really really they do.

In the meantime I will deny that the toxins of this relationship are causing me great harm.

Souring my naiveté.

Poisoning the sweetness of my illusions whilst I continue to defend his lack of friendliness and warmth as justified

The increasing violence as a sign

that his love for me is so much he can barely handle the intensity!

I understand that and why he is violent

on account of the awful things he went through as a child.

The unresolved issues with his difficult father

The conflict with his troubled mother

There was just so much trouble that went into creating his troubled life

that I share

I am perhaps the only one who really knows that

and understands him and LOVES him

The only one

The lonely one

BUT

Love will conquer all. I think I am sure of that!

There is only one fixed rule in all of this apparent uncertainty

And this the rule I made and now obey:

I must Love him no matter how hard he is to Love.

I willLove him unconditionally

I willLove him unconditionally

I willLove him unconditionally

This one rule will make it all wonderful one day because

He will open up

He will open up

He will open up

Ultimately of course I will deny myself the right to move forward, to reach my fullest potential because I will be anchored defiantly to our co-dependence and staunchly courageously

desperately

refer to it as

Love!

This is what I know Love to be.

The End

I dedicate this to my lifelong friend Janet 1959 -2001 who was killed by her husband who then killed himself.

Your life mattered Janet, your stories are important to be told. I miss you dearly my friend.

Something happens when you sit and create together…stories begin to flow and memories are remembered as the peaceful, alpha-wave state of creativity inspires the busy mind to slow down … it is a form of open eyed meditation…

Mum was telling me stories from her childhood during the second world war in England. Educated by Nuns who had little time or tolerance for the self indulgence of ‘art’ and ‘creativity’…Mum drew me an image of the only avenue there was for creative expression…to copy a pattern within a pre-existing grid!

Thankfully Mum was able to live a creative life in spite of the repression of teachers viewing creativity close to sinful, artistic passion as selfish indulgence and individuality as yet another flaw in an already suspect Soul.

My two sisters and I are blessed to have both parents alive and well, married 52 years this year…and we are equally blessed beyond measure that our Mother did not lost her creative self in the shaming and vilifying atmosphere of an institution that today is having to face its many flaws and past errors.

Once a year the Show comes to town and a few acres of land on the edge of the city is transformed into the carnival atmosphere that we all remember from our childhood.

I took my camera along yesterday to capture some of the “people Mandalas”…the show rides that people clamber aboard for the sole purpose of being thrilled and adrenalined to a whole new state!

This is the Chaos experience….looked like a bit of a metaphoride as the couple in the second shot immerse in the vuluptuous cacophony of chaos all around them……

This is the ride where people are rotated individually within a big gyration…lots of fun and laughter…and interesting how taking the shot from a completely different angle shows another side to the ride….
It’s all about perception!

This is one of the best People Mandalas at the show…I just love the artwork and creativity that has evolved on the show rides over the years…

A report into child sexual abuse in Aboriginal Communities has resulted in the Australian Government introducing enforced alcohol bans and medical examinations for all children under 6 in the Northern Territory communities.
Responses are polarised….in the eyes of some, these Aborignal-only laws will only add to the racism and separatism that started the cycle of anger and despair that has lead to many of the issues of abuse and violence in the first place. Others are asking what laws and enforced medical procedures will be put on the white miners who make up some of the numbers of the perpetrators of abuse….

The following is a letter to our state newspaper that I wrote on a day when the news of the bans were released across the country….with headlines that further places Aboriginal Australians in the pathologised, ‘troubled /wounded’ place of the collective Australian psyche, once again ignoring the depth and knowledge of traditional Aborginal culture in its pre-invasion state.

There is a saying that goes, “What is impressed upon a person will be
expressed by the person”.
For thousands of years Aboriginal society was a strong culture
defined by co-operation not competition, sustainable land management
and spiritual and cultural practices that enriched and enhanced
community life. Mental well being, a sense of meaning and purpose,
mutual obligation and belonging defined cultural identity.
A comparatively short time ago land theft, internment into opressive
camps, punishment for speaking ones own language, legalised child
removal, alcohol in exchange for compliance, sexual abuse, work
without wages, lack of legal status until 1967, maginalisation and
poverty was impressed upon the heart and soul of a once strong and
flourishing society.

As a nation we are in the very early days of recovery from the impact
of abducting children from loving family arms and the consequences of
a materialistic, competitive culture inflicting its values and fraught
land management practices upon the traditional land owners.To enforce more laws, rules and restrictions in an attempt to protect
the children is a long way from the deep healing, development of
meaningful relationships between Aborignal and non-Aborginal people
and the strengthening of the heart and soul needed for Aboriginal
Australia to recover from the violence and multiple traumas
inflicted.

What we are seeing now is simply the mirrored- expression of what has
been impressed in very recent times and as Einstein wisely
counselled….”The significant problems we face cannot be solved at
the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”.
We need to think from the heart and link hands as a nation over the
coming years to recover the strength, dignity and courage that
defined Aboriginal society for so long… until us white fellas came
stomping across the country, trampling peoples lives and seeding the
current crisis across Aboriginal society today.
Let’s at least hear you say “Sorry” John Howard before you begin
issuing more of the autocratic rules and dominant culture control
that started the problem in the first place.

Thinking about what we sew and what we reap as a result of what we Think, Say……and do…

As within Sew without…

I have been sharing some of the Art work we are creating as part of our Art of Change ~ Empowerment group and I took a few photos of the visual Art~record book that I am keeping through out our year long, once a month group.
I am very grateful to my good friend Deanna (Nungala) for partnering in this process and bringing her unique Magic! to the Vision.
I believe that part of the ACTION in AttrACTION is about getting Creative and the Vision board is just a small part of how we can CREATE our own personal ‘sacred objects’ as a fun, engaging and highly charged Magnet of Intent in the manifestation process.

How long is it since you allowed yourself to play with pencils, textas, scissors, cardboard drawing and IMAGINATION
These 2 images represent our first weeks discussion and “Heart of Gold- Heart of Goals” exercise.

The image signifies that we create our ‘pot of Gold’ by clearly stating our Intent and bringing passion, vision, imagination and ACTION into our life…

We looked at how much our body ‘wears’ the impact of not only stress…but the ‘language of stress”…things like “it’s a pain in the neck’….’she makes me sick to my stomach’…on and on the list goes.

In order to learn how to develop our ‘attraction skills…..it is important to treat our Self with great Respect and care.
In the second image little ‘Suzy’ went from being a Magical Child with big dreams and imaginings at 5 years old …to a 30-something woman now living an anxious, fearful life….What made her that way?……Check out the dozens of limiting beliefs and negative projections that she inherited through out her growing years….

We created a “Money DOES grow on Trees” PropseriTree in order to become comfortable with the sight and feel and presence of Money, as part of the raising the expectation~vibrations when moving from poverty to Prosperity Consciousness….

This week our ART of the piece was the “Your Word is Your Wand” and “We are all Magnets” ….created with the Intent to heighten our awareness of the nature of Energy, Vibration and Intention..
This is the blank copy that I created whilst sitting under the most magnificent Gum-tree full of wonderful Spirits (more on that in the next blog)……you can also see a couple of the works in progress …

Here are some the the Artist~Creators with their “You Word is your Wand” pieces….
Wonderful Women who are beginning to share some amazing insights and ‘ah~ha!!’ moments as we study concepts such as “If it is to be it is up to me” principles for creating peace, health, prosperity and happiness in order to transcend the issues of marginalsiation facing Aboriginal Australia.

Our Dad, Ken was gifted with a wonderful voice and in our growing years he was a popular singer at the local working mans club.
In his earlier life he had jet black curly hair and whilst Tom Jones still had his original nose, people often said he looked and sounded like Tom Jones…

Over the years Dad stopped singing except around the house…so I decided that for his 70th Birthday today, the 11th of February…. it woud be great to have a “Sing along with Ken” session….

We all loved hearing Dad sing when we were kids and have vivid memories of Mum and Dad dressed for their night at the Club, very much the hip-couple in their groovy outfits and matching good looks. Old Spice after shave and Taft Harispray and Hypnotique perfume hovered in the house long after they had left for their once a week time out and time together time with the other couples at the Club…

We are not a large family…so I made everyone a song-booklet to accompany the “Sing Along with Ken” compilation …

Dad was very surprised when he opened his present……
Mum was very pleased with the outcome of our Secret conversations with her list of Dads favourites…

It didn’t take long before we were all singing along to Moon river, I Walk the Line….and quite a few more that my niece and nephew had never heard of….

Sal, my beloved, came out with a baritone voice I had not heard before…
Sister Chris in the foreground almost got away with not having her photo taken…

And Sister Jacqui really put heart and Soul into her rendition of Moon River…

Sam…the much loved Samoyd~Border Collie decided he would join in with the singing and he did a very good job indeed even though he didn’t have his own song book!

In September our parents, Ken and Maureen celebrate 50 Golden Years of marriage……they met when they were 17 .

It is a blessing that we are all fit and well …and can finally sing the same tune …together….

What a Magical day we had…and true to the teachings on the Law of Attraction, when we clearly state our desire with the feeling of Love and Joy and put ACTION to that desire…we will create the perfect situation every time!

For not only am I a Magical Child in Exile but I have also become that groan-up…and I am telling my three young children to stop, stop, stop! Thus, creating more Magical Children in Exile.

I remember first coming to PI and learning LoA and The Secret. It was like a true awakening. These were things I knew as a child but had forgotten. I vividly remember knowing and believing these principles….and dancing…..and laughing….and crying….and dreaming….and believing.

Who am I to take that from my children? I hear myself tell my 3 yo to stop crying and grow up! I don’t know if I can undo the damage I’ve probably already done….but from this day forward I will feed the Magic in my Magical Children.

Thank you again.
Christina

***************

As the Mother of 3 children you are already a “Wonder Woman” Christina… and I am thrilled for you that you will now be making sure to place the “Wonder” back into your Wonder Woman life…

You are this weeks recipient of my “Warrior Woman Award”…

We make Her in my Art of Change workshops as a way of empowering the reclaimed Creativity of the original Self…and finding our wings to fly back to who we always were…… Magic!!

…

….and two more from my Wonder~Woman~Warrior~Woman~Mum who is a Mother of three like you are… 3 who were able to hold onto much of the Magic thanks to her love of art, words and imagination….

When I was a young girl, Rodney Kemp, my grade 6 and 7 Teacher saw something in me that I did not see in myself until many years later.
He brought creativity, lateral thinking, fun and play to his class room and was very attuned to the role of playing games and exercising as a vehicle for learning and group bonding.

During my teen years amidst the distrubance of going to 3 different high schools, another Teacher, a beautiful, larger than life African man, Vernon Hoffman shook his big jowls at me and said:

“You have a gift and you must use that Gift.”

Vernon died in his 40’s of heart failure. He had enormous reservoirs of passion and emotion pulsing through his body….
His heart felt interpretation of the world impacted the hearts and minds of all who encountered him on their path.

Another of my Teachers is very much alive and continues to inspire passion, insight, wisdom and possibility to thousands….
Her name is Dr Jean Houston……. Jean Houstons Web site
Attending Jean’s Mystery School- The Mystery of Time, The Mystery of Magic and The Mystery of Creation in 2001 changed my life in magical ways that are still unfolding today.

Thankyou Jean…and thankyou for creating the space and place where I met my beloved partner Sal….I have always thought I got the “Mystery School Door Prize” with the added bonus of meeting my partner in a place of Possibility and Passion.

I highly recommend attending her Mystery School and Social Artistry events.
Jean’s training includes developing internal, ‘Energy upgrades’ that enable us to create over-riding currents to bring about change thereby putting the Magical “action” to the attraction and her Mystery School intensives are truly a one of a kind event….

You can watch Jeans videos and hear her audio presentations on her web site…”The Alchemy of Creativity” is a fantastic discussion on the pod cast section.

This leads to my Teacher Molly…

Molly was 95 when she passed on. She did not write any books or run any seminars.
Few people would know her name and even fewer were blessed to undergo her training. Molly was very olde school Spiritualist. A clairvoyant and healer who had an extraordinarily simple outlook on life.
Love
Laughter
Service
Healing
Vegetarian Food
Singing

Molly never drove a car, did not own a television, she washed her clothes by hand and was a vegetarian from when she was a little girl.
Simplicity personified how Molly lived her life.

I met Molly when she was in early 80’s…her white hair was like Einsteins, wild and crackling with the electricity of a vibrant, active Mind.

..A friend told me about ‘this amazing woman who runs a development circle’ so I went along with her and the moment Molly opened her arms in her welcoming embrace it was as if two wires connected and the connection was finally made between who I had been and who I was to Become.

Molly had a hug like a vice grip…I know how my cat Yami feels sometimes when I hug him too tight it almost makes his purr-pop….
For a tiny woman Molly had the hug of a thousand warrior Angels and the currents she emitted created a bridge between the world of the seen and the unseen…a bridge that I saw many Souls stroll across over the years that she was my Teacher.

It was during a Healing Circle one day….where we sat in a circle with the healers channelling therestorative energies to people on the stools before them….that I looked up and found Molly transifxing her gaze on me…staring me straight in the eye.
I was still new to the circle and did not consider myself at all to be in the position to offer healing Energy to others.
As Molly stared at me I could feel my hands beginning to tingle and a warmth fill my fingertips like I had not expereinced before.
Molly gave a small smile and with a brief nod of her head, she directed me to the centre of the circle towards a woman awaiting healing.

I placed my hands on the womans shoulder, feeling Mollys gaze transfixed behind me and at the point of connection felt that same circuit of energy connect with the woman before me.

Molly taught me that Love and sincere Intent really is the power that heals and whether it is Reiki or massage or contact healing or any of the other hundreds of ‘versions’…it is always LOVE that creates the circuit that connects and heals.

There were many special moments with Molly that impacted my life.
When I was still a young youth worker I was employed to provide the personal development training for a group of long=term unemployed young people, under 25, 5 Aboriginal- 5 non Aboriginal, 5 male , 5 female…who were a part of a dynamic employment initiative to build a mud brick house in six months.

I had never been on a building site before, the only one of us who had was Padraic the loveable Irish builder…but over a wet winter and in spite of only one of us really knowing anything about building houses ….we got that mud-brick house built and it is still standing today….17 years later, now owned by one of the participants who built it.

I sought counsel with Molly before the project began, sharing with her my concern that I might not be up to the job…what if…blah blah…and Molly heard me out as she always did and then said quietly;

“Running Wind will work with you on this project dear. If you find things get too much or you need an extra hand, call on Running Wind and he will help you out”.

Over those six months amongst dealing with pot-smoking participants who were banned from climbing ladders, mud bricks that accidentally became mud-pies and not knowing a thing about brick laying or ‘damp courses’ when asked by the participants for a hand…I called on Running Wind often.
Every time, without fail, as soon as the call silently went out, I would feel a shift in the breeze and the presence of this great Spirit who Molly had requested assistance from on my behalf.

One unruly day when we needed to pour concrete that was quickly setting in the unexpected sunshine, surrounded by teenage brick layers who were more interested in flirting and playing from behind their dark sunglases …I called Running Wind for help and it was a sudden gale force gust of wind that swept across the site that got the attention of the group and re-focused them on the task at hand as sheets of plastic and empty cement bags began to rise and fall over the site….Running wind exhaled with gusto!

Two of those Mud-brick house making teenagers are now women in their 30’s who are in positions of influence and leadership within their Communities and I know for certain that Running Winds and Molly’s influence over that project is a large part of how they have arrived at where they are today….

In September 2000 I sat with Molly in the nursing during her final days of her transition, four months before her 95th Birthday.

Molly was born on January 26th 1905 – Australia day -and for many years she lead the Australia Day march from the comfort of the lead car….waving her flag like the Queen and allowing herself just one day of the year to be recognised and applauded….by the end of the long march flag waving had slowed down and her hand would be aching from the special wave she gave to each and every person who called out her name….

The Staff in the nursing home, the good hearted over worked Nurse~Angels had no idea who Molly was or that she carried the stories of the origins of the Spritualist Church here in Adelaide, that she was a herbalist and healer, a psychic and medium who lived between two worlds in th eplace where those worlds meet… or that she took her instruction from the Miracle making formulas and Teachings of the Master Jesus.

The Nurses simply knew Molly as the very sweet, pure-white haired old lady, never any trouble, who always said “Bless you Dear” and “Thankyou Darling”…

In spite of hospital rules and regulations, they were very tolerant when I insisted on squashing myself into the bed next to the deep-sleeping Molly to read to her as she lay in the pre-transition state of unconsciousness and they were equally understanding when I filled the room to excess with Spring Jasmine because I did not want Molly to pass with the currents of the hospices cleaning chemicals and incontinence filling her senses.

Mollys story could not be told without mention that most of her family had long ago rejected Spiritualism and her communications between the worlds was considered not at all in alignment with their chosen religion…consequently, as their religion decreed, I was not able to honour her passing through her Mother Church.
I was very upset at the time, though understand things differently now…and the night after she passed Molly came to me in the in-between place and said “Love dear…that is all that matters. Forgiveness is Love. It is all okay dear”…

Molly continues to teach me…. the words that I write are her written legacy….the stories I have shared in my Womens group over the years are often her stories and the Love that she gave me, the introduction to Running Wind and her legacy of creating powerful circuits of Healing are a blessing that go beyond words and into the realm of the Infinite.

This is my Teacher Molly…..Molly …born Katherine White 1905 -2000…our photo was taken on the last Australia Day parade we went to together….